by Damien Lewis
‘Sorry, did I pinch you?’ she whispered in his ear. She nibbled his ear lobe. ‘I get a bit carried away when I’m excited … I might even bite you, too, if you refuse to be a good boy …’
Sairah forced her tongue deeper into his mouth, until she was eating him alive. She moved her mouth down to his throat, biting at his Adam’s apple, pecking at his shoulder bones. Nick felt her pelvis thrusting down onto his stomach, the warm roughness of her pubic hair stroking his skin. He reached down to caress her and move her more centrally over him. But as he did so, Nick felt his arms go weak and his hands drop impotently to his sides. And all of a sudden Nick Coles’s world went totally black.
The Searcher picked his way across the camp towards the quarters of the Old Man of the Mountains. He was curious. He’d been woken from his sleep and called to attend an urgent meeting. He nodded at the two sentries. Security was tight in the camp now, especially after the Americans’ air raid. He caught sight of two other figures heading in the same direction as him. They were Brothers Sajid and Abdul, recently returned from operations in London. He paused to greet them, and together the three men made their way into the Old Man’s underground bunker.
The Old Man greeted them in the usual way and began calling for tea. But somehow he seemed unusually agitated and unsettled, and The Searcher wondered what might lie behind this disquiet.
The Old Man glanced at The Searcher, fierce eyes staring out from under hooded brows. ‘Brother Muhammad Mohajir, I am about to give you a new and most sacred mission,’ he announced. ‘The training for the Day of the Seven Assassins is almost complete, I believe? You have done well. Very well. You will now take command of the mission to find the missing gold. I sense we are close, Brother, very close. There have been some significant developments … but also some unholy disasters.’
The Searcher felt Sajid and Abdul shift uncomfortably beside him. He sensed that their recent London mission might not have gone as planned.
The Old Man turned to them, and his face darkened. ‘So, you found Emile and you killed him … Well done, Brothers. But you were not sent on this mission out of a need for revenge. You were sent to extract information. Information. Information that would lead us to the gold. Yet you returned with nothing. I do not care how much this infidel dog and his family suffered. All I care for is the Holy Mission – and that you have failed to advance at all. Answer me this: how could you take on this holy duty and fail?’
‘We could not extract information that didn’t exist, Your Holiness,’ Sajid protested. ‘How could we—’
‘Silence, Brother Sajid!’ the Old Man roared. ‘You sought only to kill, not to further your holy duty. As for the rest of your mission – the search at Enfeh turns up nothing. Nothing. And now we have the five Brothers captured or killed in Africa. Tell me, Brother Sajid, what sort of planning went into their mission? Not even one day did they survive before the enemy found them. We had this gift from Brother Mohajir, this priceless gift … He revealed to us where the enemy are living, and yet you failed so spectacularly …’
‘Have they talked?’ Sajid blurted out. ‘Did the infidels force the Brothers to talk?’
‘I doubt it very much,’ the Old Man replied. ‘I doubt it because Muhammad Mohajir trained them, and gave them the skills and the courage not to. And I gave them the spiritual strength to resist all. But as for you, Brothers, a catalogue of unholy disasters assail you. And yet you try to make excuses for why you have failed! Do you not know you should be begging for the Great One’s mercy and forgiveness!’
The Old Man snatched up a cane that lay by his side and in a sudden movement he struck Sajid a savage blow across the face. For someone so ancient and wizened there was considerable force behind the blow. He dealt several further strikes against the faces of the two men, before his anger was sated.
‘You will understand why the command of this mission passes to Brother Mohajir.’ The Old Man smiled in The Searcher’s direction. ‘There is one very positive development.’ He dragged a mobile phone from inside his robes and pulled up a picture on the screen. He passed it to The Searcher. ‘Ignore the girl. It is the man we are interested in. He is an agent of the British Government and he is working closely with the team who originally stole the gold. The pictures were taken last night. There are several in a similar vein. The man is married. I presume he will not want his wife to see such things. And thus I presume that he can be persuaded to betray his fellow countrymen and tell us all that he knows.’
The Searcher smiled. ‘I take it that you’d like me to have words with him, Your Holiness? Perhaps it is just by coincidence, but I think I know this man. His name is Nick Coles …’
Nick awoke with a splitting headache and a mouth that tasted like the bottom of a rabbit cage. He reached across the king-size bed for Sairah, but she was nowhere to be found. He opened one eye and listened for the sound of the shower. But it was quiet in his room, and there was no sign of her clothes. Nick swilled some water from a glass. He couldn’t believe how bad he was feeling.
He flailed around for his watch on the bedside table. It was 11 a.m. Maybe she was at college, at one of those boring Tourism Management lectures she’d talked about. That was probably it. But today – today was a Saturday. Did they have college lectures on a Saturday here? Nick comforted himself with the thought that she’d taken his mobile number. She’d promised to spend the weekend with him. No doubt she’d call.
He tried to remember the sex to cheer himself up, but oddly he couldn’t. All the more reason to get Sairah over again tonight, for a more sober and concentrated session. He wondered if she might have called already, or sent him a text while he was asleep. He felt about for his mobile and checked the screen: ‘You have unread messages.’ He clicked on the first one excitedly, noticing that it had a picture icon attached to it. Maybe Sairah had sent him a picture of herself, to tide him over to the evening.
The message opened. There was no text, only a grainy photo of a naked and comatose-looking Nick Coles, with an equally naked Sairah beside him. She had sent him a photo, but it wasn’t quite the sort that he had been expecting. With a sinking feeling he flicked through the others. They showed himself and Sairah in a series of ever more explicit poses, and each one was hugely compromising. He opened the last message with a shaking hand. It showed a naked Sairah kneeling over his prostrate form, holding up a sign scrawled in black marker pen: HI ANNA – WISH YOU WERE HERE.
My God! How the hell did she know his wife’s name? As far as he could remember from the fuzz of the previous evening he hadn’t even told her that he was married. But there had been those two bottles of Chablis, and several glasses of whisky. As well as wiping out his memory, the drink must have considerably loosened his tongue.
There was a text message accompanying the last picture. ‘Ring this number. Don’t delay. It could be very dangerous for you.’
Nick felt a sudden surge of anger. This was blackmail, pure and simple. Well, what if it was? What of it? What was a young Somali girl living in Tanzania ever going to do with some dirty pictures of Nick Coles? She had no idea who he was, so she could hardly sell them to the press. She couldn’t contact his family, friends or employers because she didn’t have a clue who they were. In fact, the more he reflected upon it the more impotent her threat became. ‘It could be very dangerous for you.’ Who was she kidding?
Nick shuffled across to the mini-bar and felt around for some bottled water. God, he felt bad. He ripped off the plastic cover and unscrewed the top, necking back the contents in one go. He knew what to do in response to her text message. It was one of his favourite courses of action: he would do absolutely bloody nothing.
Nick made his way gingerly to the hotel pool. He reckoned Sairah must have drugged him so that she could get those photos. He probably couldn’t remember fucking her because he hadn’t done so, he reflected ruefully. She’d dosed him up before any of that could really get started. Well, if she did have the audacity to call him he would
give her a piece of his mind. He’d also have words with the hotel staff, that damned waiter in particular.
Nick plunged into the emerald water of the pool, held his breath and swam a length without surfacing. He came up gasping for air and breathing heavily. He swam hard for several minutes, and then decided to take a rest under one of the sun awnings. He felt a little better already. Maybe he could get one of the staff to bring him some fresh fruit juice and an enormous pot of coffee, to help sort out his head.
As he slumped onto the plastic recliner he heard the ring tone of his mobile. He picked it up and glanced at the caller ID. It showed a private number. It was probably her.
‘Yes,’ he snapped.
‘You didn’t call. I told you to call.’
Nick sat up, immediately alert. This wasn’t Sairah. The voice was male, and British-sounding, although the accent had just the slightest hint of an Arabic lilt to it.
‘Who is this …?’ he began.
‘Listen, Nick Coles of MI6 and The Project – I do the talking, okay?’
Nick was speechless. Whoever this was they knew a damn sight more about him than he would have wished.
‘That’s better. It’s been a long time, Nick. Still, I’m surprised you can’t place the voice. We all loved the photos, by the way. Not exactly over-endowed in the manhood department, are we, Nick? If that’s the best an agent of the British Government can come up with, what have we possibly got to fear? I don’t think your wife Anna will be too impressed, either. But it won’t be the size of your manhood she’ll be worried about, will it, Nick? “Hi Anna – wish you were here.” I loved that one … Nick, are you there? Say something. It’s your turn to speak now.’
It had been a long time – eight years or more – since Nick had last heard that voice, but he recognised it all right. It still possessed the same arrogance, the same perpetually mocking tone. It was his nemesis: Knotts-Lane, The Searcher, Muhammad Mohajir, the protégé of the Old Man of the Mountains, and the trainer of the Black Assassins. For the umpteenth time Nick cursed the fact that the Sea Strike had failed to kill him.
‘Knotts-Lane.’ Nick spoke quietly into the phone. ‘Knotty, to your friends. Or Muhammad Mohajir, as I hear it is now … How are the burns, by the way? I trust they’re healing well?’
‘You know, Nick, that was a cheap trick and so typical of you cowardly infidels. You ran to your Yankee masters, just like you always do … Just one brave suicide bomber, Nick, that’s all you would have needed. We have hundreds, ready and willing to die for the cause. But you, you’re all so fearful of death, aren’t you, Nick? It’s pathetic, really. Oh, and the burns are healing fine – my faith keeps me strong.’
‘I’m so glad. What is it you want? I presume you do want something.’
‘Oh indeed, yes. You see, His Holiness had some gold and it was stolen from him and now he wants it back. You can understand that, can’t you? Here’s the deal, Nick. You tell us what your friend Kilbride is planning, and the pictures will never see the light of day. You tell us everything, and the pics disappear. Otherwise, I’ll be emailing them to your good lady wife. Oh, sorry, I forgot. She doesn’t use email, does she? Well, maybe I’ll just have to deliver them in person …’
‘Fine, you can show my fucking wife,’ Nick snapped. ‘I don’t give a damn. The marriage is dead and buried, anyway.’
‘And how about your children, Nick? Maybe they’d like to see the pictures too? There’s Lucinda, Clarissa and James, I believe? I can give you their university details if you’d like them. Lucinda is at Bristol studying law, Clarissa is at Bournemouth art school …’
Nick ran a hand exhaustedly across his face. ‘You fucking bastard …’
‘Nick, Nick, don’t be like that. His Holiness is only asking for the return of what is rightfully his … I think you’re probably not feeling very well this morning, Nick. You drank a little too much, and then I fear Sairah might have drugged you. So here’s what I’m going to do. You have twenty-four hours to make your decision. I want to hear from you by Sunday evening, latest. A word of advice in the meantime, Nick: don’t forget to call, and stay away from the girls.’
The line went quiet and Nick presumed that Knotts-Lane had called off. It had been an echoing connection with a slight time lag, as if his tormentor was speaking on a satphone. But then his voice came on again.
‘Oh, one more thing, Nick. I almost forgot. The stakes are a little higher than your family being upset over a few dirty photos. If you refuse to play ball, we’ll kill you, Nick, and maybe all your family too. If you doubt me just look at what happened to Emile. You underestimated us once. You thought a little unmanned aircraft could deal with us. Don’t ever do so again. Islam is on the march, Nick. You’re the old order. The future is ours. We’re unstoppable.’
There was a click and this time the phone line really had gone dead.
Nick stared at his mobile in disbelief. Suddenly a weekend with the woman of his dreams in a sun-washed Dar-es-Salaam hotel had turned into his worst-ever nightmare. He’d fallen for the oldest trick in the book: the honey trap. How could he have been so stupid? How could he have let it happen?
Nick would probably never know for sure, but he could put together a credible scenario. The enemy were still watching Kilbride, and they had picked up on his and Nick’s meeting, so revealing where he was staying. And Sairah? She was probably exactly who she’d said she was. For a few hundred dollars she would have pulled the little photo job, no questions asked. Why shouldn’t she? It was easy money.
Even as he pondered on these dark thoughts, a spark of hope ignited in Nick’s mind. Surely there had to be a way to turn this around, or at least engineer a vast improvement on the present situation. It would mean confessing to his superiors that he’d been the subject of a classic entrapment. But he wouldn’t be the first to have been ensnared in that way, and if they saw the photos of Sairah they’d probably understand.
If Operation Trojan Horse was to work, they needed a way to alert The Searcher to Kilbride’s arrival in the Lebanon. When Kilbride had outlined his plan the previous evening, Nick had presumed that they would simply leak this information to the enemy. But surely there was now an even better way? Now they had a direct line to The Searcher himself. The Searcher believed he was blackmailing Nick and thus forcing him to talk, which provided the perfect cover. The Searcher would suspect nothing.
Nick waved one of the waiters over and ordered a cafetière of maximum-strength coffee. He still felt pretty rough, but at least his mental state was improving. The Searcher’s arrogance was beyond belief, as was his conviction of his own invincibility. And maybe that was his big weakness, his fatal flaw. As Nick poured himself a cup of hot black coffee, he was reminded for a second of Sairah. It had been a roller-coaster twenty-four hours, that much was certain. And if he really did have to be put through all this, the one thing he regretted most was that he never had fucked her.
Back in his room Nick placed a call to Kilbride. ‘They’re closing in,’ he announced.
‘What d’you mean?’
‘They just paid me a visit at the hotel. Or at least one of their … associates did.’
‘Fuck.’
‘Exactly. They’re watching, Kilbride. Be careful. I’m all right and I’m catching my flight back to London tomorrow as planned. I’ll keep my head down in the meantime. But the quicker we can do this, get it all wrapped up, the better.’
‘Understood. We’re ready to move. Just as soon as that decoy gold is in position, we’re ready.’
‘I’m going to work on the China end of things now, Kilbride, from the hotel. It might mean disturbing a few people’s weekends, but what of it? Mine’s hardly been a pleasant and relaxing one, and it’s far from over. Let’s start building our tungsten bomb.’
That afternoon, Kilbride briefed Berger, Smithy and Boerke on the new developments. With five of the enemy having turned up at The Homestead, the savage murder of Emile and his family, and now Nick’s un
welcome hotel visitor, it was clear that they had to get moving. Kilbride outlined an accelerated schedule that would get all elements of the plan in place within two weeks, at which time they would activate Operation Trojan Horse. Last but not least, Kilbride told the three of them about The Project’s new demand that they should deliver the gold to Cyprus. It met with an angry response from his men.
‘Deliver the gold to Cyprus?’ Smithy snorted. ‘I don’t trust them one bloody inch.’
Boerke scowled. ‘It’s clear, man, that they are trying to fuck with us.’
Bill Berger slammed a fist onto the table. ‘So let’s fuck with them back! We just ignore ’em, load up the dhow with the loot and we’re outta there. Or am I missing something?’
‘We do that and they’ll be onto us,’ said Kilbride. ‘They’ll get a warship steaming after us, and in no time we’ll be heading for Cyprus under escort. No, we’ve got to play ball with them, or at least make it appear as if we are … Let’s say the dhow ships out from here with three ten-point-five-metre RIBs on board. And let’s say that upon arrival in the Lebanon the RIBs are packed with seventeen and a half tons of gold – or at least something that we could pass off as being the gold. That’s just under six tons per RIB, plus the boats – so maybe twenty tons in all. Is there any chopper in the world that can carry that sort of payload?’
‘We make the best goddamn choppers in the world, and nothin’ we have can handle that,’ Bill Berger volunteered. ‘I mean, the CH53 Super Stallion’s the biggest we got. And what can she manage, fifteen tons maybe, and even then she’s maxed out.’
